


Breaking Point

by Edollhouse



Category: Vikings (TV)
Genre: F/M, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Implied/Referenced Torture, M/M, Manipulation, One-Sided Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-21
Updated: 2015-04-21
Packaged: 2018-03-25 04:13:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,570
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3796273
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Edollhouse/pseuds/Edollhouse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>[SPOILERS up to episode 3x09] Betrayed by the two people closes to him, Aethelwulf needs to decide what to believe, who to trust and which way is the right one.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Breaking Point

As he has been instructed, he finds her in his father’s library. This is the place she and his father go to remember Athelstan, or she does and his father used to. These days the King seems to avoid it and Aethelwulf suspects that nothing can move his father’s heart to action, not anymore. 

To his surprise, the location does not bother him. The light is shining in on her from the window and makes her white dress glow, and in that moment he knows that he has truly forgiven her and loves her more than he has ever loved anyone, his son excepted. 

“Judith” he calls and she turns to look at him. “Anna told me you wanted to see me?” he wonders why she has chosen this place, why she sent a maid with a secret message instead of coming to see him herself. After dinner last night he thought he had convinced her that he is no longer angry with her, that he wants them to go back being husband and wife again. 

“There is something I must tell you.“ 

She is so calm and he is stricken by how much she has grown, how she has matured since he first met her. Then she was but a young princess from Northumbria and now she is a grown woman, a mother, future queen, and, not least due to his father’s influence, a politician. It shows in her stance, her voice and eyes, so different from last time she had important news and told him she was carrying another man’s child.

A part of him is afraid of what it is she will tell him, wants to ask her not to tell him whatever it is she wants to share with him in such a grave tone. However, he is a grown man, a warrior, and should not be afraid of mere words.

“What is it?”

She avoids his gaze, staring at a spot on the floor next to him and before the words have left her mouth, he knows what they are.

“I have betrayed you once more.” 

Somewhere inside he knows this information should make him devastated. He has just forgiven her and come to terms with what happened between her and Athelstan. Maybe that is why he cannot truly believe what she’s saying, but her serious face leaves him no doubt what she means. Still he stares at her in disbelief. 

“You . . . Why would you do this to me, Judith? Whatever could have possessed you to . . .?” Her forceful yet calm voice interrupts him.

“I did not do it out of lust. I did it as a mother protecting her children, for protection of me and Alfred.”

Slowly he walks over to her, towering over her, but doesn’t touch her, afraid of his own temper. He directs his anger towards whoever has dared to threaten her, whoever has forced her “Protecting you from whom?”

She looks up to meet his angered gaze with nothing by clearance and honesty. She has long since decided on her move, after careful deliberation who she trusts more and who she fears less “From you.”

“From me, and who would . . .?” at first affronted by the accusation, but he quickly forgets that feeling when he realizes that there is only one person who could offer her protection from him, her husband and the Prince of Wessex. “My . . . you have laid with . . .”

His reaction doesn’t budge her, doesn’t frighten her the least, she has anticipated it and uses his shock to continue with her steady tone. “Yes, once, when you were away, as recompense for his protection. He told me that we both knew that you were capable of-” 

Aethelwulf doesn’t let her finish, doesn’t want to hear what sort of gruesome things she has thought him capable of. 

“And you believed him?” He sighs in desperation and hopelessness. He almost wishes she had betrayed him once more, but this . . . “Judith, I would never hurt an innocent child, I would never hurt you” he pauses as his eyes linger on her hair on her right side “Again, I have forgiven you for what you did”

“I know that now, I didn’t then, you . . . You were so angry and he assured me that they were both his grandchildren, that he saw Alfred as . . .”

“He made it clear that the difference was so great that it could only be conquered by him. He has uplifted Alfred to show that he is not like his brother, provoking me . . . So that you would think he needed protecting from me.”

The words that are unspoken yet perfectly understood, that his father has threatened her and her child and consequently forced himself on her, is more than he can bear. Never said, and yet those words have destroyed his world. 

He blames himself. If he could have learned to anticipate his father’s plans when they were still brewing instead of when they were already set in motion, he could have foreseen this. If he had been a better husband, a better Christian, and given Judith his forgiveness before he went to Mercia, she wouldn’t have felt she needed to sacrifice herself for her child.

In that moment he hates his father and feels so utterly betrayed and abandoned. He looks to her with pleading eyes and the small sympathy he senses is enough for him to embrace her, his wife, and hold onto her, desperately wanting to protect and feel protected. Slowly, he feels her arms around him, one of her hands caressing the back of his neck and the other stroking his back.

“He knew that as long as you had not forgiven me, as long as you held your grudge, I would be afraid that you might hurt Alfred. I thought he genuinely cared for him, that he reminded him of Athelstan, that he wanted to protect him. I should have realized it was a trick, preparation for a way to get power over me, but I didn’t, not until it was too late.”

Nothing in her voice suggests that she is looking for forgiveness, that she would even need forgiveness. Instead she sounds angry, disappointed, betrayed and he feels the urge to comfort her. Gradually he lets go of her until they can look each other in the eye.

“Those are not necessarily exclusive. If having Athelstan’s child could also mean controlling you, he would not see why Alfred could not be both those things. It’s like sending me to Mercia, it would either give him an agreement of surrender or he would have had a reason for war. I am now sure he was prepared to sacrifice me at Kwenthrith’s, and then you would have been his mistress, perhaps providing him with another child that he could have passed off as mine.” 

“I think he might be going mad” she confesses. When she came to the King and he talked of the moon as a god and echoes of footsteps in his memory, she was almost afraid of him. Aethelwulf nods. 

“I have to kill him” His father’s corruption has gone too far, he is not fit to be a Christian king and though it might go against all he has been taught, it is required by everything he believes in.

“No, Aethelwulf, please, don’t” For the first time since they started this conversation, Judith looks worried.

With all his might, he places a tender hand to her cheek. She is a wonder. That she has been subjected to his father for so long and still has remained so strong and good, is nothing short of a miracle. He tries to make her understand. “He is not a good man, Judith.”

“But you are!” realizing the words aren’t strictly true she quickly changes them “You try to be, he doesn’t” it might be a small difference, but it is an important one.

“So what do we do?” he pleads her for an answer, for guidance, for truth. She gives him a small reassuring smile and places her hands on his cheeks. 

“Now when you know, he has no power over me.” He makes a sad smile and places his hands on top of hers.

“He can still threaten your children, he can still have me killed and leave you to his mercy. That he cannot threaten you with me anymore does not mean he has no power over you.”

She stretches up and kisses the corner of his mouth “You are right. We will figure something out.”

-

Aethelwulf doesn’t waste any time before confronting his father with this new information. Killing him might be out of the question, but he has to let him know that he knows what he has done, let him know that Judith is not available to him any longer. He finds him sitting by his big desk, studying some documents. When he looks up he looks mildly surprised.

“Aethelwulf, what can I do for you, my son?” the ease in his voice angers Aethelwulf even more.

“I know what you did, Father. I know you forced Judith to come to your bed while I was in Mercia risking my life on your orders. How could you do that, to your own son, your own daughter-in-law?”

A part of him would like to hear his father’s explanation because he honestly cannot wrap his head around it. His father lets him speak without interruption and without judging him, something that only happens when Aethelwulf has rightly found him out. The face is unreadable as he takes in his son’s words.

“Judith has obviously given you one version of the events. Would you allow me to give you mine?”

Aethelwulf marches over to the chair on the other side of the desk and sits down “This will be interesting to hear”

“We dined together, as we often do. She kept pouring us more wine, I drunk too much” he willingly admits “and when I had drunken so much my wits were no longer with me, she started talking about Athelstan. I can only assume she had kept pouring to sooth her pain and build up courage to mention him, since it is not without its complications” There is such resignation in his voice and Aethelwulf must applaud his father for how convincing he can appear. The King sighs.

“It was hard for me when he left, both the first and the second time, as you well know. I cannot talk to you about him because I know the mere name upsets you, but Judith, for obvious reasons, was all too eager to indulge me. I think she did it in an attempt to feel closer to him.”

“Please, Father, stop the charade” but his father ignores his words.

“And I was weak. I miss him to no end and she . . . She made me believe that she understood, that we were the only ones who could understand each other’s pain. Mine, for losing such a dear companion and her pain for” he hesitates and throws Aethelwulf a worried glance “Perhaps I should not tell you this, but she said that since you pushed her aside, she has felt more like Athelstan’s wife than yours, feels that she is married to him and like a faithful wife she awaits his return. In my drunken state, her words made me believe that she was not your wife.”

“If that is true, why would she sleep with you? If she is such a faithful wife?” the sarcasm is heavy and Aethelwulf cannot believe his father is expecting him to trust any of this. Ecbert spreads his arms in a gesture that suggests that the answer is anyone’s guess, but he has a guess he is willing to share.

“Because she misses him and she was determined that us sleeping together would ease that pain. What other reason could there have been? Why would I initiate that we would lie together? You know that except for your mother, there has never been a woman who has managed to” his son looks at him with shocked disbelief, thinking his father must take him for a complete fool, but the King has an answer to his unspoken question.

“Princess Kwenthrith, Earl Ingstad, I did that for Wessex, politics, our political gain. What political gain would we gather from me sleeping with Judith? She is your wife and you are my son, my loyal dutiful son. She is already as bound to us as she possibly could be” his tone is almost gentle, as if he understands Aethelwulf’s pain, but still needs to make him see the truth. Aethelwulf tries to resist, fights to keep a critical eye and ear.

“The bond was weak. I had pushed her aside, I was yet to forgive her” His father’s eyes turn soft and had they been anyone else’s, Aethelwulf would have called them loving. Ecbert rises and walks over to his son to place his hands on his shoulders.

“But you did, as I knew you eventually would. Son, listen to me, I am not proud of it, on the contrary I am ashamed to no end, but it was only one drunken foolish incident and you have my word, it will never happen again.” He kisses Aethelwulf’s hair and places a hand to his cheek to turn him to face him. “Please, show me the same compassion and Christian charity you showed your wife yesterday. Forgive your old languishing father his weak heart.” 

“I forgive you” the words are out of his mouth before he has a chance to think them over, but he doesn’t have to. His king, his father, is asking for his forgiveness, what else can he do but give it? Ecbert makes a tender smile and kisses his forehead.

“Thank you, thank you, my boy. You truly are the most faithful, most moral man in the whole world” then he walks back behind his desk and sits down.

The warm feeling that emerges in Aethelwulf’s chest only lasts a few seconds. Then he remembers that the crime his father is confessing to is not the real crime and he clears his throat.

“She told me you said it was the price for protecting her and Alfred.”

Ecbert looks almost bemused “Protect them from what?” 

“Me” Aethelwulf answers shortly. The fact that Judith would have feared him so is still hard for him to swallow. His father looks at him as though what he has said is so far beyond imagination it is hardly worth discussing.

“But you would never hurt them.” He says as though Aethelwulf has never hurt a living soul, animal or man, in his entire life. “Even if you didn’t have your righteousness and good heart to stop your anger, your loyalty and sense of duty towards me, your father and king, would have forbidden you to act on your feelings without my permission.”

“Perhaps you would have allowed it, as you allowed Judith’s punishment” Aethelwulf suggests, but he can feel himself slipping, sensing that he is about to lose and desperately he tries to remember what Judith has told him, her version and words, which sounded so believable when she told him.

Now his father looks honestly confused “But that doesn’t make any sense. What I allowed then was the Bishop to act according to our Christian laws. Judith has not done anything wrong since, and who can be more innocent than little Alfred? What reason would I have had to allow such a thing?”

Aethelwulf sighs and shakes his head “Far too often, Father, I find that I cannot determine the reasons for your actions.”

The father smiles at his son. “And yet you know that I always act according to reason, know beyond doubt that everything I do, I do for a reason. But as we have concluded, there is no reason why I would have acted the way Judith describes.”

No matter how Aethelwulf tries, he can only find that his father is right. All questions have been answered, all apparent wrongs have been explained. He diverts his gaze to the candle on his father’s desk. “I am sorry, Father” he mumbles.

“Oh, no, this was not your fault . . . This is what they do, Aethelwulf. They are sweet and beautiful, but most of them are treacherous and false. Princess Kwenthrith might be the extreme, but do not fool yourself into thinking that Judith is much different. Let me remind you that this is the woman who betrayed you with another man, who had another man’s child.”

“You told me you believed that was God’s work” it is a last futile attempt to prove that his father is wrong, but how can he when his father agrees with him?

“Yes, and I do, but the point is that she is weak, weak before her own lust. She does not understand the consequences. Yes, she understands that betraying you was wrong, but what remorse has she shown? How eager has she not been to come to me with Alfred and place him in my arms, again and again, constantly reminding me of Athelstan? She said herself she would be a hypocrite for even considering your faithfulness. I am afraid your wife has discovered that faithfulness is not in her nature. Even now, when she has betrayed you again, she takes no responsibility, shows no remorse. Instead she swears herself an innocent, which we both know she is not.”

“She said my anger frightened her” Aethelwulf tries, searching for a way to combine Judith’s and his father’s versions.

Ecbert nods at his words “Perhaps it did, perhaps she thought sleeping with me would guarantee my protection, a young woman’s attempt at scheming” he tilts his head to the side and studies his son with what looks like sympathy. “I trust you, my son, more than I trust any man or woman. I trust you with things I do not share with anyone else, I trust you with Wessex’s, England’s, future, and you were the only one I could trust to come back from Kwenthrith alive. Now, all I expect in return is that you trust me, as you used to before your wife started putting strange thoughts into your head.”

“When I spoke to her, it sounded like she honestly believed her own words” he mumbles, wanting to defend the wife he has just regained. His father huffs.

“Don’t be too sure. She knows about our plans to unite England, her father is the King of Northumbria, she might consider herself to have good reason to try and divide us. You must remember that she will always be King Aelle’s daughter, just like you will always be my son and I your father.”


	2. Epilogue

His father forgot that as children grow up and have children of their own, they can abandon the title of son or daughter for the responsibilities of a mother or a father. 

It is Judith’s idea to wait. Wait until the boys are old enough to remember their powerful grandfather, but not so long that he will be able to start shaping them to his liking. When Aethelwulf is having one of his dark moods, he suspects she really wants to wait because she wants them to inherit a greater kingdom than Wessex.

During the time they wait, they see countless of people be duped and betrayed and two great kingdoms conquered. Mercia is the first to fall and then Northumbria. Aethelwulf holds his wife in his arms as she cries herself to sleep after her father, mother and brother have been killed. Still she smiles with her now three sons and two daughters and tells them that their grandfather is a great man.

The Northmen return and they fight them, Aethelwulf forever Christendom’s finest warrior, and after they hear that Athelstan died years ago, Judith drops her interest in all things pagan. She takes the news better than the King, who when hearing the news has a rare moment of honest emotions and drops his cup and has to grip his son’s arm not to fall to the floor. They hear of Ragnar’s death and Aethelwulf is surprised to find that he grieves the great warrior, but finds solace when he also hears that Ragnar was baptized before he died.

When years have passed, Aethelwulf is tempted to believe that they will wait until God chooses to bring his father home. He is now an old man and though his heart and soul are twisted, there are still moments when Aethelwulf recognizes the father he once loved. Then one evening Judith tells him she has overheard the King suggesting to one of his granddaughters that the host of siblings is not so much of a host as one might think.

In the middle of the night, Aethelwulf walks down the halls to his father’s bedchamber. Careful not to make a sound, he opens the door to see the old man lying in his bed. Next to the bed is Judith with a pillow in her hands. When she sees Aethelwulf she drops the pillow, walks over to him and places a hand to his cheek.

“It is done. The King is dead. Long live the King of England.” Aethelwulf has been convinced that when this moment finally arrived, he would know that he made the right choice. He was right.


End file.
